Brian Cuban the younger brother of Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, is a Dallas based...
Tish Vincent retired as the Director of Michigan’s LJAP. She is now the Chair of the ABA...
JoAnn Hathaway is the Practice Management Advisor for the State Bar of Michigan. With a multifaceted background,...
Published: | March 14, 2018 |
Podcast: | State Bar of Michigan: On Balance Podcast |
For lawyers struggling with addiction, stigmas, lack of support, and the fear of consequences can make the situation seem hopeless. In this episode of On Balance, hosts JoAnn Hathaway and Tish Vincent talk to Brian Cuban about what you can do about addiction both as a lawyer and as an employer. He explains that it’s about handling the problem of addiction before you have to deal with its consequences. They also discuss how vital it is to have peer support when you’re struggling with wellness issues and how sometimes stigmas can get in the way of a full recovery.
Brian Cuban the younger brother of Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, is a Dallas based attorney, author and addiction recovery advocate.
State Bar of Michigan: On Balance Podcast
Overcoming Addiction and Achieving Wellness as a Lawyer
03/14/2018
[Music]
Intro: Welcome to State Bar of Michigan’s On Balance Podcast, where we talk about practice management and lawyer wellness for a thriving law practice with your hosts JoAnn Hathaway and Tish Vincent, here on Legal Talk Network.
Take it away ladies.
[Music]
JoAnn Hathaway: Hello and welcome to another edition of the State Bar of Michigan’s On Balance Podcast on Legal Talk Network. I am JoAnn Hathaway, the Practice Management Advisor for the Practice Management Resource Center at the State Bar of Michigan.
Tish Vincent: And I am Tish Vincent, the Program Administrator for the Lawyers & Judges Assistance Program at the State Bar of Michigan.
And here’s our interview with Brian Cuban.
Brian Cuban: I didn’t even have to change into my nice shirts since we are only boys.
JoAnn Hathaway: No, you didn’t. You just be relaxed.
Brian Cuban: I had a nice shirt with pajama bottoms.
JoAnn Hathaway: Oh, it sounds too fun.
Tish Vincent: Okay. And Brian, I think we’re going to be talking about lawyer well-being.
Brian Cuban: We are.
Tish Vincent: Very good. Can you share a little bit about yourself with our listeners?
Brian Cuban: Yes, for there were many years as a lawyer, where I was not very “well being.” I am a lawyer, I am licensed to practice in Texas, I went to law school at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Penn State undergrad. I am in recovery from alcohol and cocaine as well as an eating disorder, bulimia and exercise bulimia.
Yes, guys do get eating disorders and by the way we have Eating Disorder Awareness Week coming up, I believe next week.
Tish Vincent: Yes, we do.
Brian Cuban: So, a very important time to raise awareness, even in the legal profession. So, I’ve been in recovery from those things since 2007 so I’m moving around to 11 years, and during that time, before recovery, my drinking and then my drug use had a significant impact on both my studies in law school, and my ability to practice law.
During those times, again, there was the alcohol, the drugs, I became suicidal in 2005, two trips to a psychiatric facility, three failed marriages, one more I get a free set of steak knives, all failing in some form or another because of my drug and alcohol use. I’ve been to jail and I came out on the other side.
Now, your listeners are going to be wondering, how did he go through all these things? How does this guy still have his license to practice law?
Well, let me tell you something, it wasn’t for a lack of trying, okay. And we joke about that, but it’s really not funny, lawyers do lose their license, there are consequences and which is why recovery at the earliest point possible, is always better.
Tish Vincent: Always, always. You save your life, you save your license, and you learn to live healthy. Do you agree?
Brian Cuban: Absolutely. One of the hardest conversations I have with lawyers and law students, to some degree, who are struggling, they email me, getting them to understanding, getting them to the point to realize where not waiting for the consequences to catch up with the problem.
Because we are a profession that thinks we can think our way out of issues, think our way out of problems and this is not a problem, you could think your way out of. So, what happens, we put it off, we put it off, we put it off, all of a sudden you’ve committed malpractice, all of a sudden trust funds are missing, this or that.
And now there are consequences and now the State Bar is involved, why wait for that? What I tell them is today, is as good as it’s ever going to get to start recovery. It doesn’t get any better, there is no such thing as a high functioning lawyer in terms of recovery and addiction.
There are only levels of loss of functioning until it eventually drops off that cliff, it is only a matter of when.
Tish Vincent: That’s absolutely true, absolutely true.
JoAnn Hathaway: Can you share with us, Brian, what — and maybe I’m putting the cart before the horse here, can you share your experience as far as what was your trigger, I think you said in 2007 to cause you to cease and desist?
Brian Cuban: Yes, it was my second trip to a local psychiatric facility, here Green Oaks, and it was after a two-day drug and alcohol-induced blackout, Easter weekend of 2007 in which my girlfriend at the time and now wife, she stood by me, so, yes, relationships won’t always survive, if that they can survive these things came home to find me in bed with drugs and alcohol everywhere. She knew nothing about this stuff.
And I was standing in the parking lot of that psychiatric facility and a couple of things occurred to me. One, the first thing was, well, she was going to leave, I’d leave, right? She stood by me, and well, we dated for a really long time as I found recovery, rebuilt the trust, and I had to do it for me not her. She stood by me and we ended up getting married over — 10 years later, so relationships can’t survive these things.
Another thing that occurred to me was I’d probably be dead, there wouldn’t be a third trip back.
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And the third thing that occurred to me that was really the one thing that I grabbed on to was that I was dangerously close to losing my family, not losing their love because families will hopefully still love us unconditionally, but there are going to be limits on their willingness to watch us destroy our lives, if we are not willing to take that first scary step into recovery.
Tish Vincent: Yes.
Brian Cuban: I realized that I had really reached that point with my family, and I just couldn’t allow that happen. I have two brothers, people probably know my brother, Mark, the Shark Tank guy and the Mavericks. I have a younger brother, Jeff, we are very close. I’m the middle, Mark is the oldest, Jeff is the youngest, we are very close.
My father, a veteran of the Pacific and Korea, I’m close with my father and he raised us growing up, he would joke, growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, he would say, guys, wives may come and go; well, yeah, for me, I certainly have. Girlfriends may come and go, and he’s joking, of course, we hope we have wonderful relationships.
But when push comes to shove, all you have is each other. No matter where you go in life, no matter where your travels take you, no matter what happens, you pick up that phone and you call your brother and you ask your brother if he’s okay, you tell your brother you love him.
My father was the middle of three boys and I thought about that growing up and I couldn’t lose that bond of brothers that he had instilled in us. And if you want to know how that bond is taken all these decades later, thousand miles away, 1,200 miles away from Pittsburgh, PA my brother and my father all of us live walking distance to each other, Dallas, Texas.
Tish Vincent: That’s fascinating.
JoAnn Hathaway: Wonderful.
Brian Cuban: That was the trigger, I couldn’t lose that, so the next day, I decided it was time and I went to my psychiatrist’s office who I have being lying, lying, lying to, I had seen for a couple years, well, why would you lie to your psychiatrist, you’re paying him, right?
Well, shame knows no hourly rate.
Tish Vincent: So, you can keep using too, you lie so you can keep using everybody does.
Brian Cuban: You lie because you think you’re ashamed, you you’re ashamed, you’re stigmatized, lawyers are good liars.
Tish Vincent: Very good. Yeah, we manage the truth, I would say, we manage the truth.
Brian Cuban: You manage the truth, and that’s a great quote because managing the truth is great because one thing that happens in addiction as it progresses and progressive, managing the truth gets really hard.
Tish Vincent: It does.
Brian Cuban: And you spend every ounce of energy you have managing the truth versus living your life.
Tish Vincent: Absolutely.
Brian Cuban: In a healthy way.
Tish Vincent: Even when you were doing that, Brian, even when you were doing that, though it sounds like you could feel your brothers’ and your father’s love for you and concern about you. It was like an energy that was always with you, even when you were kind of lost out there.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely, if we jump back to 2005, when I had decided to take my life, my brothers were instrumental. They came into my house, I had a weapon on my nightstand and they took me in my first trip down to the psychiatric facility. They’ve always been there and this is what our father instilled for us to be there for each other and my family has been very instrumental in my recovery and I understand that I am privileged and blessed to have that, because a lot of people don’t have that, which is why when we don’t have that, it’s important to find the peer recovery group that can support us, that becomes our family.
Tish Vincent: Absolutely.
Brian Cuban: So, even if we don’t have family there, we can find family to support us.
Tish Vincent: Yeah and we can encourage the culture, the legal culture to become more involved and more caring and more concerned.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely.
Tish Vincent: — with our members who are struggling. I know you said that you just came back from the ABA Mid-Year Meeting, and you had some experiences there talking to a professional association. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Brian Cuban: Yes, I spoke at the National Conference of Bar Presidents meeting and one of the things my presentations was about Weaknesses in the Legal Profession, and one of the weaknesses in the legal profession is wellness. It is not a weakness, it is not the weakness it was a year ago because a lot has happened in that year, we’ve had the ABA Hazelden study, we’ve had the ABA task force report, and now, they just approved resolutions to get people to adopt to the extent they can the what’s in that task force report, get all the stakeholders. But, it is still a weakness, weakness is all relative to where we could be, right?
Tish Vincent: Right, absolutely.
Brian Cuban: One of the things we talked about, and again, I don’t, I don’t drink, I didn’t go to these things, no one invited me to these things was I had people who were tweeting to me about, again, the open Bars at the ABA Mid-Year Meeting, all the open Bars, that’s okay, that’s okay.
The ABA doesn’t control what the private organizations have but the ABA can, we can’t take even the smallest step in the messaging. When we have these events what messaging are we sending to the people who are coming to find balance in these events?
I joke — I used to go to a lot of these type of events and get drunk like everyone else and then I got sober and I started noticing at these events, okay, here’s all the whiskey, here’s all the booze, here’s all the beer. They’re the two leaders of Warm Diet Coke and Three Bottled Waters that you have to pry from the bartender, that’s not balance, that’s not balance.
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Tish Vincent: No, that’s not balance. That’s pretty unbalanced.
Brian Cuban: Yes, it doesn’t cost much at all to just start messaging for these conference events to the people attending about balance and how we have these private open Bar events. We are not a profession of people who everyone doesn’t need to be a teetotaler, right, “teetotaler”.
Tish Vincent: Right.
Brian Cuban: There are people who can drink in and be fine, but we are a profession where over 33, I think it’s 35% around that number of lawyers practicing under ten years qualifies a problem drinker, we are a profession where 21% of all licensed attorneys in the profession statistic we qualify as a problem drinker. I think that merits messaging at these events.
JoAnn Hathaway: Now, Brian, you had mentioned that percentage, did you say 35%?
Brian Cuban: Yeah, under 10 years, I think it’s around 35% under 10 years. Overall it’s 21%.
JoAnn Hathaway: Okay. Now is that something that’s been measured in the past, so it’s been going up or —
Tish Vincent: Do you want to talk about —
Brian Cuban: Yeah, here’s the interesting thing. There was a study about 1990 that look at the issue and it was just the opposite, those of us who were practicing longer were more than problem drinkers, and now it’s switched around to more than Millennials, so that’s one of the interesting dichotomies there of what’s going on.
Tish Vincent: That research was done in 2014 and 2015 and then published in 2016.
JoAnn Hathaway: Oh, interesting.
Brian Cuban: Yeah, now that’s the new research. Yes, that’s the new research. The previous research was around 1990.
Tish Vincent: Right and it was the American Society of Law Schools I think that did that earlier one if my memory serves me right.
JoAnn Hathaway: Okay, so we have the numbers and obviously they switch with the age groups, do we have any rationale or information behind that study and why that might be the case?
Brian Cuban: Sure! I mean, Millennials face a different set of pressures than we face job pressures, loan pressures, the pressure — the number of solo practitioners out there, social isolation issues. Within big law it’s not — making partner and the competition is not what it was like, there are different types of stressors that could account for a lot of that.
Tish Vincent: The fact that the new graduates have so much debt is an issue according to people who come forward and speak about it that they are graduating into a saturated market and they’re doing so with $250,000 worth of debt frequently and finding jobs is difficult and so when people come forward and talk about it on a case by case basis this often comes up, and so, I wonder how much that influences those statistics, whereas people graduating from law school in 1990 did not graduate with that amount of student debt and graduated into a job market that had more positions for more graduates and that’s depressing.
Brian Cuban: It is depressing and so that’s another level. Those are the triggering level and then below the triggering level we have the stigma level and the legal profession has a double stigma. One, we have the general stigma that cuts across all professions in demographics of addiction and itself, people think it’s a choice, people think just stop, just say no, it’s shameful, people don’t understand I don’t want to lose my job, I don’t want to lose my family, we have all these different stigmas that cut across professions.
Then we pile on it the stigma specific to our profession. I don’t want to lose my license, I don’t need to be vulnerable, I can isolate this, I can think my way through this. Lawyers are not good about allowing themselves to be vulnerable. We tend to take advantage of everyone else’s vulnerability, but within the context of the adversarial process, but allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is not something we are good at.
Tish Vincent: No, we’re not, we’re not and I think that lawyers worry a lot about their reputation. They are in competition with other similarly situated professionals and they want to look good at all times and they have a fear that if they admit that they need help it will cause their reputation to be diminished.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely, and that transitions to the stigma of using the Legal Assistance Program.
Tish Vincent: Yes.
Brian Cuban: I’ll tell you a quick anecdote. I spoke at a Dallas Bar event, this was now probably around a year ago and I was talking about the Legal Assistance Program in Texas called TLAP or Lawyers Assistance Program, I’m sorry. It’s Lawyers Assistance Program. Legal Assistance Program sound me different, Lawyer Assistance Program, so.
And afterwards a seasoned trial lawyer comes up to me and he goes, Brian, I understand what you’re saying, but they’re not confidential, if someone goes to them it’s going to get out, it’s going to get to the State Bar, it’s going to get out to the law firm, to the profession, how do you know that? I say, how do you know that? Another lawyer told me. Well, how does he know that? I think someone told him.
So, you are a seasoned trial lawyer and you’re coming to me with a guy told a guy, who told a guy.
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That’s the stigma, but that defines the stigma of going to the Legal Assistance Programs, and so anecdotally, I know it’s there because lawyers told me that all the time, that they are afraid that it’s not confidential. They believe that it is an arm of the State Bar.
Tish Vincent: Yes, they believe that the LAP will report, they are afraid that the LAP will report to discipline that they’re having trouble.
Brian Cuban: That’s right and now it depends on the State, but if you are already in the disciplinary process, yes, there could be situations where there are reports made as part of whatever discipline, right?
Tish Vincent: But only if you sign a release of information and ask that the report be made, it would never be spontaneously made. I think I can say that clearly for Michigan and in the LAPs in other states; the LAP is there to help, yeah, not to punish.
Brian Cuban: That’s right, the LAP is there to help, so the State Bar is there to protect the profession, we get that. It should be — we can argue about whether there should be more of a prong about protecting — I mean protecting the public. There should be more of a prong about protecting the profession as well and getting lawyers’ help.
But yes, could there be circumstances in which the State Bar is involved? Yes, but when you report to the Legal Assistance Program, that is confidential.
Tish Vincent: Yes, it is.
Brian Cuban: That is confidential. They are not telling anyone.
Tish Vincent: And I think, now, I am a social worker, a clinical social worker and I’m also an attorney, and the rules for confidentiality for therapists and attorneys are very different. I wonder sometimes if there’s confusion along those lines that they’re thinking the confidentiality would be similar to the lawyers’ confidentiality dependent upon whether you were representing them at the time or not, I don’t know all the particulars, and I might be wrong, but there’s a difference. We are statutorily precluded from reporting anything without a waiver of that person’s privacy and confidentiality.
Brian Cuban: And one of the things we talked about the other day and one of the things that I advocate, and of course, this is going to — there are different Legal Assistance Programs do different things within that program; but, how can we make it as user-friendly as possible, how can we get lawyers who go to the Lawyers Assistance Program website to feel as comfortable as possible that their communications will be protected.
We know they all say to some degree or another your communications are 100% confidential. We also know that at least anecdotally that lawyers don’t always believe this. They have questions.
Tish Vincent: Yes.
Brian Cuban: They have questions about their situation. So what can we do?
JoAnn Hathaway: So, Brian, let’s switch gears here for a moment and talk about risk to legal employers. What if legal employers develop awareness of the impaired attorneys and reach out to them effectively? Can you talk to that?
Brian Cuban: Sure. If you don’t have good policies in place and you don’t reduce risk, you could be subjecting yourself to malpractice claims. You could be paying higher insurance premiums. There is a financial component too.
Let’s talk about the — and I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but let’s talk about the financial impact to the workplace overall of addiction. It’s incredible. The number of dollars that are lost. The number of work hours that are lost.
A lawyer who might be billing out a certain amount of hours may stop billing out those hours effectively. I call it the Peter Principle of Recovery. You have a lawyer who is doing well, sober, not having an issue, develops a problem.
What we do in recovery is as our performance shrinks we keep self-defining, redefining our version of high functioning, and it keeps decreasing, keeps decreasing, all of a sudden you are not giving a dollar for a dollar in the billable hour. All of a sudden you’re not giving the client the service the client deserves on a file, and the performance keeps shrinking and it eventually gets to the point where someone may notice, but there is a dollar impact just from a law firm standpoint, from a solo practitioner standpoint, you are not giving the dollar for a dollar to a client anymore.
Tish Vincent: Their productivity has gone way down. There also is a risk that you’ll mismanage matters or there’s also a risk that you might start stealing client funds. That’s something we see with gambling and with addiction to chemicals when it gets severe.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what does that mean? You’ve waited for the consequences to catch up with the problem. First is dealing with it at the earliest possible point and there are resources available today to deal with it at the earliest possible point that didn’t exist when I broke into the practice of law.
(00:19:58)
We have the Lawyers Assistance Programs, we have — of course, we’ve always had 12-Step groups. We have for lawyers who don’t like 12-Step we have Smart Recovery, there is Celebrate Recovery, which is Christian-oriented, there’s Holistic Recovery.
Tish Vincent: Yep, there’s Women for Sobriety, which is a group for women that do not wish to go a 12-Step direction, there’s all kinds of options.
Brian Cuban: That’s right, and I have lawyers who have contacted me saying, I just don’t want to put my face in there, I’m afraid. Fine, we have online recovery now. Put your face in an online recovery room, which is anonymous, and get peer support. Peer support is so important. Creating a family of people who understand and will support you is one of the prime factors of recovery.
Tish Vincent: Absolutely it is, and the firms need to create that environment for those who are troubled, I think the sense that there’s support for you to get the help that you need and you don’t have to be afraid to come to the firm management and let them know that you’re struggling.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely and how can firms do that at the least possible, let’s start with the least common denominator that’s user-friendly that doesn’t cost a lot of money.
If you are a firm of a certain size, set up a committee, set up a wellness committee that meets twice a year. It’s just twice a year, to review policies, to determine how you are encouraging your lawyers to come forward, to get help. Is your Employee Assistance Program what it needs to be? Just meet twice a year. Do you have a designated person who a lawyer can come to without fear of reprisal as long as they have not done something, okay? To come to you at their earliest possible point to help them navigate the wellness system, the recovery system; this does not cost a lot of money. This does not cost a lot of time. That is the least common denominator to get started, a wellness committee.
Tish Vincent: It’s in the firm’s best interest, it’s in the public’s best interest and it’s in the lawyer’s best interest, who are working there; we also talked about risks faced by isolated solo practitioners that maybe have no health insurance or who are experiencing financial difficulties. Can you share some wisdom with folks in that circumstance, Brian?
Brian Cuban: Yes, this is where the Bar Associations need to be proactive in getting the word out to these solo practitioners of what’s available, what’s going on, having more events focused around wellness, there are all kinds of different things. Maybe you’re not into yoga or meditation, but there is a whole slew of different wellness events and things we can do to bring the solo practitioner into the fold in terms of awareness and in terms of alternative methods to sitting in their office, alternative methods to hitting the bar than to hitting the bar to release stress.
Bring them together and we need more events like this, outside of just the CLE events, we need Bar Associations to be very proactive in pronging into the solo practitioner community, because that is the majority of practicing lawyers.
Tish Vincent: Yes, it is. It definitely is and often they are so busy and they’re isolated and they don’t know where to go to get some of the information that they need.
Brian Cuban: That’s right, and they may not have health insurance.
Tish Vincent: No, many of them don’t, unfortunately not all of them I’m saying, but I know that in Michigan we hear that some people are not doing well enough to purchase the insurance or they have decided that that’s the cost that they could cut, which is an unfortunate one since tending to your health is so important, whether it’s physical health or mental health.
Brian Cuban: That’s right, and let’s stop beating around the bush about it. The Bar Associations can get proactive and get blunt. We understand that people who have these issues may not have health insurance, we get that, that’s an issue.
Here are some of the other free alternatives to get you on the path to recovery if you don’t have health insurance.
Tish Vincent: Yes.
Brian Cuban: We don’t have to beat around the bush about it. We get you don’t have health insurance, here’s what else you can do.
Tish Vincent: Right. And you’re not the only one, there’s other people in the same boat. It’s a problem that some people have and this will help you.
Brian Cuban: That’s right, it is not shameful, it is where we are as a society right now. Hopefully that will change, at some point, but here there’s 12-Step, there is this, there is that. There are the free alternatives to start you on the path.
Tish Vincent: Absolutely, and I think your message is a strong one that you are saying to our listeners and to other attorneys out there, I have struggled, I have come close to ending my life and I found help and you can find help too and you are not going to be harmed by this going forward. You are going to have a thriving practice, a good life and you only have good things to look forward to. That’s the message I hear.
Brian Cuban: Absolutely, that is my message and let’s be clear. I got sober in 12-Step, that was the first place I went but I also — I still go to counseling today. There’s no shame in that. I see a therapist every week. I suffer from clinical depression, I take medication every day, and even today I deal with the baggage of my childhood, okay?
(00:25:02)
I’ve had lawyers where I’m the first person they’ve told me about sexual abuse, physical abuse, childhood abuse and they’ve never told anyone, and of course, I’m not the person to help them with that, I send them to people.
Tish Vincent: Right.
Brian Cuban: But lawyers are people too, right? We bring the baggage of our childhood, of our difficult marriage, of family dysfunction to the law firm door, to the solo practitioner door, to the courthouse door, we bring all that stuff and instead of compartmentalizing it, at least, I can say one of the freeing things of my life and my recovery is dealing with that.
It’s not easy dealing with all that baggage. We don’t like to do it, who likes to relive being a 13-year-old boy where I was bullied severely but dealing with all that stuff is just as important within the profession to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and address those issues.
JoAnn Hathaway: Now Brian, you have mentioned a lot of excellent resources and one of the things we haven’t mentioned though and our listeners may not be aware that you have written a book, and can you share a little bit about that resource, because people may be very interested in that?
Brian Cuban: I have, I’ve written a book called ‘The Addicted Lawyer: Tales of the Bar, Booze, Blow, and Redemption’. You like the alliteration there?
Tish Vincent: I like that, I like that, yes.
JoAnn Hathaway: I do.
Tish Vincent: It’s catchy, it’s catchy.
Brian Cuban: And as you might imagine, a lot of it is about me and about my recovery, about my struggles and how addiction cratered my law practice. I mean, I was doing cocaine in the courthouse and all my clients were gone, and how I found recovery, but it is not just my story, here’s where the book differs.
I have stories from other law students and other lawyers, who have dealt with everything from heroin to alcohol to cocaine, so it covers a wide variety and how they were able to find recovery and redefine their lives. I have people from Lawyers Assistance Programs, I have lawyers who deal with lawyer discipline, all giving their perspective. So, I tried to cover it from a number of angles.
Tish Vincent: That’s excellent and I have been reading the book and it’s very well-written, Brian, it’s very compelling. I think attorneys should pick it up and read it.
JoAnn Hathaway: And I would like to point out too that for those of our listeners who are Michigan members that we do have the Practice Management Resource Center Digital Library, which is free to our membership, and we have Brian’s book in the library. So, people can check it out for free, so first-come first-serve.
I think after this podcast, we may have to order a couple more.
Brian Cuban: Oh, thank you.
Tish Vincent: Absolutely, we have to do that.
Brian Cuban: To the members of the Michigan Bar or any Bar listening to this, if you are struggling; one, if you are struggling it’s progressive, it is just not going to go away on its own. Deal with it at the earliest point, don’t wait for the consequences to catch up to the issue.
If you know a lawyer who is struggling, it is so easy for us just to say, I’m not sure, should I say anything, it’s none of my business, I don’t want to rock the boat. He’s going to be mad at me, she’s going to be mad at me, tell me to mind my own business.
You know what, that may happen, that may happen; but, we all have the ability to be empathetic, and I’ll tell you what, if you say something and that one time that lawyer says to you, that law student says to you, I’ve just been waiting, I felt so alone, thank you. I’ve just been waiting for somebody to notice, and now, I don’t feel alone if all the mind your own businesses in the world will seem like nothing.
Tish Vincent: Oh, so true, absolutely true. That is such a wise statement that you just made, Brian.
Brian Cuban: We have to take responsibility for our own profession and that means not being afraid to reach out to other lawyers, who we believe are struggling and take a chance.
JoAnn Hathaway: Well, thank you for that. Thank you, Brian. It looks like we’ve come to the end of our show, so we’d like to thank our guest today, Brian Cuban, for a wonderful program.
Tish Vincent: Brian, if our guests would like to follow up with you, how can they reach you?
Brian Cuban: You can contact me at HYPERLINK “http://www.briancuban.com” www.briancuban.com or just email me, [email protected], I am accessible to anyone who wants my input.
Tish Vincent: Thank you again, Brian. This has been another edition of the State Bar of Michigan’s On Balance Podcast.
JoAnn Hathaway: I’m JoAnn Hathaway.
Tish Vincent: And I’m Tish Vincent. Until next time, thank you for listening.
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State Bar of Michigan: On Balance Podcast |
The State Bar of Michigan podcast series focuses on the need for interplay between practice management and lawyer-wellness for a thriving law practice.